


get back to where we lasted

by crookedspoon



Series: in amicitia nihil fictum est [2]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Frottage, M/M, Misunderstandings, Nostalgia, POV Ronan Lynch, POV Second Person, Pining, Sex in a Car
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 11:12:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17160953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crookedspoon/pseuds/crookedspoon
Summary: Here is what you want: You want your friend back – but how can you tell him that when you're both not those children anymore and everything has become so goddamn complicated?





	get back to where we lasted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [owltrocious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/owltrocious/gifts).



> This is officially my longest one-shot yet. This is also the childhood friends AU that took me ages to write because I ditched the ending I had originally planned for it, but couldn't come up with another one. So it... kinda fell by the wayside for over a year. But since it was already at 8-9k, it had to be finished come hell or high water. I can't promise it makes sense or has a satisfying ending, but I like the _idea_ of this AU and needed to share ;D

Henrietta's early morning scenery is a stunning mixture of lush green grasses glinting with a kaleidoscope of dewdrops, sunbeams slanting off the reddish rooftops, and trees waving lazily in the breeze. 

Too bad this natural beauty is overshadowed by your mood going to school. You can think of a dozen activities you'd rather be doing right now – dishes and laundry among them – than entering the tedium that is the Aglionby curriculum.

Yet you promised Gansey, and some moronic honorable code dictates you be true to your word. Sometimes being unable to lie is a huge pain in the ass, but it's still a point of pride to you.

You pull into the parking lot. At the edge of the campus you spot a lone figure crouching in the shade behind the buildings. As you park, another figure slinks around the corner, hunched and nervous. You imagine greetings and other things to be exchanged: there's a quick sweep of the area, a clasping of hands, a friendly cuff on the shoulder, then the newcomer hurries away.

You haven't seen Kavinsky on school grounds for weeks, but then again, your own attendance record is not a stellar example of punctuality and sticktoitiveness. He may well have been here when you weren't, and there's no way to tell unless you asked around, which you damn well are not going to do. It doesn't interest you. Nor does it matter.

Still, his presence draws you in like a current, despite your resentment and your insistence on avoiding him during daylight hours. He's a different creature then, at once too strange and too familiar, a grown-up version of the boy you used to chase over the green meadows stretching out beyond the Barns. 

He looks all wrong now.

You prefer to encounter him at night, when the darkness obscures the angles of his face and the alcohol makes it light up from within. It's easier then to ignore the loss of innocence – not that he ever had much to begin with, but there used to be a boyish side to him that got excited about more than just self-destruction. 

As ridiculous as it sounds, you still miss the old him, the one you flew kites with, built mud castles with, ditched homework with in favor of playing in the fields till evening yawned into night, this scarecrow of a boy, all stick-limbs and sinew, yet with a softness about him you're beginning to think must have been imaginary. There's no way this sharp-boned skeleton you're approaching is the same boy you used to tussle with, tip cows over with, lie in the grass and dream together with.

You'd rather avoid him after your fight this weekend and leave. But you promised Gansey.

His mouth splits into a sickle grin when he sees you, a neutral courtesy he flashes everybody, regardless of what business they have with him. You're not special anymore.

"Dickhead," he greets you, and it's the friendliest he's been in a while.

"Shit-for-brains," you shoot back.

"What brings you here?" It's almost lewd, the way he sucks on his cigarette, and your eye tics because of how much you want to punch him for making your eyes wander to his lips. "Need some love potion for your girlfriend? Think that'd get him to finally let you screw him?"

By way of reply, you slam his back against the wall.

It doesn't faze him. He just laughs in your face.

"My bad. Of course you'd let him screw _you._ " He tips his head in defiance and the glint of his sunglasses blinds you.

"I'm not here to talk about Gansey." This close, you catch more than a whiff of his knife-like aftershave under the cloud of weed and cigarette smoke. It, too, is less repulsive at night, when it had hours to disperse and mix with exhaust fumes. Sometimes you wonder if he's trying to mask the rot that has infested him, if he even notices how far it has spread.

"But you _would_ let him screw you," he laughs at you again and it is grating. "There's no shame in that, you know. If either of you have performance issues, you can tell me, I'll help you sort it out."

"I said, that's not what I'm here to talk about. Are you deaf as well as stupid?"

"Okay, okay, I'll bite," he says and snaps his teeth. "What _are_ you here to talk about if not the sad state of your love life?"

Your fingers tighten around the lapels of his school uniform. "Cabeswater," you growl, because that's a conversation you still need to have, one he's been refusing to have, and you're running out of time.

He rolls his eyes ostentatiously and lets his head thud against the brick behind him. "Don't you ever quit? I already told you no."

"No is not an option." 

"It's gotta be, because that's the one I'm giving you."

"Don't be that way, asshole. I'm not telling you to stop, I'm asking you to help me figure out how to make it safe. It used to be, man, and I'm sure it can be again."

He's staring at you for a while, eyebrows scrunched together behind his sunglasses and lips slightly pursed. He sucks in his bottom lip and chews on it.

"Want to stock up for tonight?" he asks finally, but you barely catch the sounds coming out of his mouth.

"What?" 

That's not the answer you've been expecting. Or the question. 

It's been a while since he's invited you in person. Most of the time you just went, like everyone else, because what is anyone going to do to stop you? But unlike everyone else, you don't cluster around him like a swarm of flies. You don't need his attention. You have it anyway, in a sort of negative, _I know you're there but I'm waiting to see what you'll do_ sort of way, unless he decides to give you the time of day – or night.

You hate how sometimes being at his parties feels like begging.

He was yours before he decided for whatever shit reason that you weren't good enough anymore and started hanging out with other people. You're still sore about that. You fucking used to dream together, build things together, an entire world of dreams, but now he seems to be content with providing his cronies with all the pills and weed and booze they can ever need or want? Fucking waste, if there ever was one.

"You're coming, right?"

"I've got better things to do," you sneer and immediately regret it. If he's offering you a chance to talk to him, you ought to take it.

"Such as Gansey, I know, I know." He slaps his palm on your head and rubs his thumb over your buzz cut. It makes you dangerously aware of how close you are and how deliberately he has been derailing the conversation. "I'm sure if you ask nicely enough, he'll take you himself. Making sure to keep a tight leash on you. How do you put up with the chafing, anyway?"

"None of your concern."

"C'mon, just ask him to take you for a walk. I'm sure no one would be surprised to find you on all fours beside dear old Dick."

"Fuck off." Your fuse is dangerously close to blowing. You jam his shoulders harder into the wall behind him.

"That's cute, coming from the asshole accosting me when I was minding my own damn business."

Before you remember to pull his hand away, his fingers smooth down your head to clamp around the back of your neck. And just like that you're transfixed, unable to move when he pulls you in, crushes your nose against his shoulder and his cheek against yours where his stupid sunglasses dig into your flesh, and all you feel is skin and heat and an elevated pulse that's rushing him to an early grave. Your own pulse is not far behind.

"Be there tonight," he murmurs so his breath plays about your earlobe and you shiver. "And bring me something fun."

With his other hand, he presses something small and rounded into your palm. You don't need to look to know it's one of his dream pills. You have an assortment of them hidden away in a drawer; you prefer to go about dreaming your tried and true way.

"On the house." He folds your fingers over it and leans close as if kissing the air above your scabbed knuckles. 

Something turns over like an engine in your chest, or maybe your head, because not a single thought sparks and all you can focus on are his goddamn pretty lips – which he must have noticed too, because he's raising his shades from his nose and he's grinning in a way that would signal danger if you had your wits about you, but you don't, and the bruise around his eye has faded since the weekend, and before you know it you're touching it, your palm against his cheek, your thumb brushing over his discolored skin, his fingers curling over your wrist, dipping into the cuff of your uniform, tickling the sensitive skin there, and you're certain that if you don't stop this right now, he'll twist the moment like a knife in your gut, unthinking and inevitable, just as that last time, when he ruined what friendship was left between you and gave you no choice but to push him away completely.

Maybe you thought you could salvage something that way, or maybe you were just trying to save your skin.

"Still a chickenshit?" he asks, nose brushing yours, mouth a hair's breadth from your own. You don't appreciate the reminder, but what the hell, you've been living with the consequences of it ever since. 

Is this your chance at a do-over?

Off to your side, someone coughs politely.

"Am I interrupting something?" 

Your first instinct is to shove Kavinsky away, as if that would undo the past minute and a half; your second instinct is to freeze where you stand because fuck, this is Declan. Your own brother saw you nearly make out with your childhood friend. God Jesus Mary fucking _shit,_ he's going to think you're jealous or something.

Kavinsky just settles back against the wall as if nothing at all had been happening, as if his fingers weren't still burning on your wrist, as if Declan were just another desperate fuck willing to sell his soul for whatever services Kavinsky provides.

"Not if you plan on joining in," he says, bold as brass.

Declan smiles thinly, but his eyes are on you. You're aware of the fire in your cheeks, how your brother can't miss it. "That's not exactly how I planned on spending my free period."

"Let me guess," Kavinsky surmises with a dirty grin. "You need another batch of blue pills to please your latest lady friend, am I right?"

Your lips compress. The jab at Declan's promiscuity ticks you off. There's something those two can talk about. They were fucking made for each other. 

You rip your hand free and turn around; whatever their body language is about to betray, you don't want to find out. "I was leaving anyway."

Before you can, however, Declan pulls you aside. His voice is perfectly fucking neutral when he says, "Stay away from him. He's not your friend anymore."

Anger flashes hot inside you, blood pounding in your ears. Your face grows hotter still. It pisses you off how effortlessly Declan can pretend to be unaffected by what he'd just witnessed. It pisses you off how he doesn't care that you might have been encroaching on his territory. It pisses you off how he's so goddamn _casual_ about his sex life, like none of his partners _matter_ to him. 

It pisses you off that you have these thoughts at all. This wasn't what you bargained for at all.

Fuck Declan and fuck Kavinsky, too.

"Don't worry. He's all yours."

With that, you stalk off, heart in a snarl of anger, ache and annoyance. When you piss off your brother, you want it to be on your terms, not a crazy happenstance that brought you all together in one place.

Kavinsky must have been trying to stop you, because Declan tells him to leave you alone. You're not sure how you feel about Kavinsky listening to him.

"Don't forget tonight," Kavinsky calls after you.

You flip them both off over your shoulder.

But with you out of the picture, they've already moved on to other topics. You've been in their way the entire time.

"So, you do want me all to yourself," you hear Kavinsky say. "I get it. Okay, shoot. What can I do for you, handsome?"

"Don't," Declan hisses. "Not on campus."

The rest of their conversation is lost in the rustling of the leaves overhead. You keep your gaze resolutely in front of you. You don't want to turn around and see your brother finishing what you started.

Your insides are boiling. You don't know what you're most furious about: the fact that Kavinsky still hasn't agreed to stay away from Cabeswater, that you nearly fell prey to him, or the fact that your brother interrupted your nearly falling prey to Kavinsky.

That you _wanted_ to fall prey to him.

School is out of the question now. Sorry, Gansey. You can't show your face near him anymore, not before you haven't wrung a promise from Kavinsky and certainly not in this state. You need an outlet for your growling anger, preferably one that includes smashing things to pieces.

Here's a thought: maybe you _are_ jealous.

***

You're back to where it all started, the moment of no return.

You're an idiot for thinking you could mend things with Kavinsky, for thinking what you had was not beyond repair yet. Good luck getting it back. Kavinsky is not the same person he'd been years ago. Neither are you.

And that's the crux of the matter: you've both changed, you've both slowly grown apart from each other and moved on to different things. It seemed like Kavinsky found more and more excuses to go chasing after girls instead of hanging out with you at the Barns, until one day, he stopped coming altogether. You still had Matthew to share all the fun daytime activities with, be it stick-fighting or tumbling in the grass, but as much as you love your brother, he's a bright and affectionate thing, and sometimes you missed Kavinsky's savage humor.

Even his name... you can barely remember what it was like to call him anything other than Kavinsky, just as you cannot remember what it was like when he called you anything other than Lynch. Sure, you insult each other more than you call each other by name, but just knowing he refers to you in the same way he refers to your brother makes something inside of you curdle, because to Kavinsky you are no different from your brother.

Except that you're convinced he's sleeping with your brother, all the evidence points to it, and you hate them both for sneaking behind your back, but at the same time you hate them for not sneaking about enough, for not keeping it behind lock and key so you would never have to think about it, never have to think about Kavinsky making out with your brother, going down on your brother, breathing out your name against your brother's lips.

The truth is, you could have had this, too. You were given your chance, and you blew it.

It must have been half a year ago, a long time after he's started becoming this warped version that he is now and traded in your friendship for those lickspittles of his, the ones that are surely around only for as long as he can entertain them. But you can see why he likes them. They cling to him in a way you never did. You called him out on his bullshit. All they ever do is laugh about his dick jokes, slap him on the back, suck up to him. He needs their adoration.

It was a long time too after you started using Gansey to fill the Kavinsky-shaped hole inside you, unrealistic and unfair as that had been from the get-go, to expect him to pour concrete into your wounds when he's barely had the time to get to know the surface you present him with. Kavinsky would have known every ridge and groove of it; he's left it there.

It was a long time after you've been denied to enter the Barns. That was the main thing. You've been yearning for it in your blood, and perhaps that has made you yearn for Kavinsky's friendship, reminiscent as it was of easier times, when you never thought of losing the only home you ever wanted to know.

It was a night of self-destruction, of drinking too much, of driving on blurred streets – you ultimately lost to Kavinsky in a race, but you weren't satisfied to leave it at that. You needed to imprint the pain that was shredding you on _his_ body. So you pulled up next to Kavinsky's parked car, fully intent on busting up his nose and a few more bones besides and not stopping until he fucking begged you for mercy. 

You got the fight you were hoping for when he asked if you were upset that you lost, when he told you to go home and cry to your mommy about it. 

But instead of begging you to stop, it seemed like he was egging you on to continue until his head was bashed in, and for a moment you saw your father lying there, dead, in front of the garage, with a bloody tire iron next to him. 

You lost it. 

Over and over, you told him you would, you would go home if only you could. 

And then, with a pragmatism you wouldn't have expected from someone beaten within an inch of their life, he gurgled, "Why the fuck don't you?"

Just like that, you were floored. Just like that, you stopped pummeling him. The answers that came to you – "Declan won't allow it" and "The will says we'll lose everything if I do" – sounded stupid even as you said them out loud.

"So forge your own will," he said and spat a gob of blood in your face.

You didn't even notice.

His suggestion hit you harder than anything in your life, because how could you have been so stupid? How could you not have thought of this? After spending years dreaming up ever more elaborate creations with him, how could you not have come to this solution on your own? It was only logical and quite possibly something your father would have approved of, encouraged even.

You hurried away then, leaving him to pick up what was left of himself, mind racing with possibilities, with the necessary steps to be taken, but mostly with hope. You could be going home soon.

The time between your first clumsy attempts and the final reading of the new will seemed unbearably long, but you could wait if it meant you were allowed to go home at the end of it.

And you were. You were allowed to go back home. It worked. 

Finally.

 

Memory flooded you the moment you drove the winding road to the Barns, enveloped you as you stood on the rolling fields, reassured you as you entered your childhood home again. Everything was exactly as you remembered, not an item or a smell out of place, and the effect was so jarringly beautiful that you thought you might have just stepped out of a time capsule. Except, you noticed after a while, once your wonder has had the opportunity to settle, it was quieter than you remembered. Even when your father was away, Declan was at school, your mother had taken Matthew shopping, and you were at home sick, the Barns had not been this deathly silent, as if time here had stopped ticking the moment your father died.

In a way, it had.

Your mother appears to be asleep despite the many tubes attached to her like appendages, and yet her laughter is alive inside you. You remember her chiding you in her musical voice whenever you came home covered in hay, in mud and grass stains, with new scrapes and bruises. She never chided Kavinsky though, because he was a guest, even if he looked the same as you did and she would insist on washing his clothes even if it meant letting him borrow some of yours that were at least two sizes too big because he's always been a skinny shrimp and you used to make fun of him for that.

It's like every memory you've made with Kavinsky has been preserved inside your home, everywhere you look evokes another one and you notice the homesickness you've been experiencing was in part a nostalgia for the time you and him were as thick as thieves.

Here is what you want: You want your friend back, the one you pelted with mud pellets by the river, the one you'd find in the hayloft when playing hide-and-seek with your brothers or in front of the fireplace, with dripping hair and a damp blanket around his bony shoulders after you've been caught in a thunderstorm – but how can you tell him that when you're both not those children anymore and everything has become so goddamn complicated?

 

The next time you saw him loitering on the back parking lot of 24/7 eateries, you told him to get in your car. If there's one thing you can count on with Kavinsky, it's that he's always on the lookout for entertainment and what would pique his interest more than you coming out of nowhere, wanting to take him away?

With a rude gesture, he took his leave from his pack of dogs, who accused him of bailing on them and warned him to take care of his face. He'd only just become recognizable again. As you'd expect, he didn't care. He had already parked his carcass in the passenger seat and slammed the door before they could voice half their protests.

"Congratulations," was the first thing he said to you, "I heard you finally got to run home and cry to mommy."

Your self-satisfied smirk was all the answer he would get and all the answer he needed. He clapped your shoulder.

"Way to go, Lynch. Better late than never. I take it you wanna thank me now."

You hadn't really formulated a plan, but it didn't involve thanking him. Not with words at least. It burns inside of you, this feeling of gratitude at having your home back, something you wouldn't have achieved if it hadn't been for his suggestion, but it's nothing you could verbalize. 

And nothing you wanted him to know about.

Maybe you'd had this idea that showing him the Barns would remind him of how he preferred it to his own stark, lifeless home, where no one waited for him and no one would appreciate the gift of dreams he had to offer. At the Barns, he had been accepted as extended family, and you suspected your father had been secretly fond of Kavinsky because he was like him. Like you. It was in the way he ruffled his hair when Kavinsky – Joey then – showed him a dream thing he'd made or the way he'd invited him to sit with you and your brothers when he was about to break out a story.

Those must have been happier times for him too, and although your father is gone, your mother is in a coma, and your brothers prefer their campus housing out of convenience, the familiar scent of wet earth, of hickory smoke and citrus cleaner should trigger enough memories for him to want to come back here more often.

Indeed, he entered like he'd never been gone and immediately left his fingerprints everywhere. He perched his sunglasses on top of his head and picked up stuff as he went, turning it this way and that, seeing if it still worked, then putting it down in favor of another gadget.

"This shithole hasn't changed one bit," he said, but with what you chose to read as fondness, even if you took offense at his choice of words. "It's still full of junk."

The sight of him in these walls that are stacked with fake antiques and futuristic appliances was at once familiar and alienating, because he was taller now, thinner, and his hair was bleached. He wandered carelessly through the house, as if its wonders were none to him anymore, and it stirred something painful inside you, as if you were already anticipating him to leave again.

It was sweltering outside and not a breeze stirred the air. You handed him a beer from the fridge, to prolong his stay a few moments more.

"Want to dream again?" he asked out of the blue, turning sharply. And then it hits you. His carelessness had been an act, to hide the fact that the house had trapped him in a spiral of memories so powerful it knocked his breath out, just like it did yours the first time you came back.

"You mean like old times?"

"It's why you brought me here, right? To relive them. That's some sly shit, man. So, yeah like old times."

As he walked towards you, he produced a tiny plastic zip bag from his pocket and shook two green pills into his palm. One of them he gave to you. His hands were trembling. 

"Helps you dream," he answered your questioning gaze. "Watch this."

Placing the pill between his teeth, he grinned at you, flung himself on one of the armchairs lining the wall and crossed his legs over the armrest. He swallowed the pill and washed it down with his drink. Seconds later, he was asleep, bottle dangling loosely from his fingers. It was the sleep of the dead, unmoving and undisturbed. Even you stopped breathing, trying to discern any sign of life in his unconscious body. After a few moments, his limbs violently jerked life back into him. His eyelids fluttered, then opened slowly. He blinked several times and shook his head, as if to get rid of the residue of sleep.

You had forgotten how quickly he regained control over his body after he dreamed something into existence. Unlike you, who'd be paralyzed for a good while after. He used to make it a sport of seeing how many dicks he could doodle on your face before you managed to shove him away.

In his lap a box had manifested between one blink and the next, but as usual your brain tried to convince you it had been there all along. You've stopped questioning it long ago.

"What's that one do?" you ask.

"You're welcome to check," he said and carried the box over to you. It was dark red, about seven inches on all sides, and heavy, judging by the way Kavinsky was holding it. "It's nothing living, I can tell you that much."

He lifted it to chest height so you didn't have to stoop and you raised an eyebrow at him, wondering if it was safe to open. He raised one in turn, daring you to find out.

Bracing yourself for a jump scare, you lifted the lid. You had barely touched it when it sprang open and something punched you square on the nose. You staggered backwards, nearly unbalanced.

Kavinsky, meanwhile, doubled over laughing, clutching his sides. The box had dropped to the floor. Like a single flower blooming in a vase, a bright red boxing glove was swaying on a spring.

"Fucker, can't even use your own fist," you growled and lunged at him, crashing his back into the nearest cabinet. His sunglasses flew from his head and landed somewhere with a clatter. He shoved you back, but you didn't budge more than a step. He threw a punch into your already smarting face, but he was still bursting with laughter and anyway, you're used to brawling with your brother. Kavinsky is nothing compared to that.

You tripped him, but he clung to the back of your neck so that it might look like you were lowering him in a dance, but then he elbowed you and kicked the back of your knee. It buckled and crashed to the floor, and Kavinsky with it. He was up quicker than you and jumped your back, attempting to put you in a headlock. You struggled to shake him off, to jam your back into another cabinet or a wall, but your legs snag at a small table and you lose your balance, toppling over onto Kavinsky, along with the ever-dewy plant that had been occupying the table. It sprayed you with dirt and dewdrops.

He groaned as he landed on his back but didn't release his grip. You tried to jab your elbow into his ribs, but that slippery bastard was too thin for you to land a good hit. Your vision was starting to swim when you applied brute force to break the headlock. It would never have worked against your brothers, but against Kavinsky you should stand a chance, even when he had the upper hand.

With enormous effort and the strength of the desperate, you managed to pry first his fingers loose, then his arms, and jammed the back of your skull against his forehead. You elbowed his gut for good measure and rolled off of him and onto your side. Just as you moved to pin him, he kneed you in the stomach. It squashed your nose into the dip of his collarbone. His skin was damp and searing, and his pulse hammering rabbit-quick against his chest, and you were overcome with the absurd urge to bite his neck.

He made a pained noise as if you'd already done so and yanked at the back of your muscle T with both hands. As you lifted your head, your sensitive nose followed the line of his throat and his Adam's apple bobbed against it. You shivered. You hoisted yourself onto your elbows until your head hovered over his own and your breaths mingled. His tickled against your perspiring skin and no other sound seemed to fill your ears but that of your breathing, yours and his.

He stared at you, openly, as if waiting for something. His pupils had swallowed his irises completely. You stared back, expecting his expression to sharpen any moment, before he'd insult you with a cutting remark. But it didn't happen. His chest rose and fell against yours.

You could have looked away. 

You could have looked away and broken the moment, but you didn't, and neither did he. His gaze flitted from your eyes to your mouth and he licked his lips and you couldn't tell whether that was an unconscious act or an invitation, or whether there was really any difference between the two. In that moment, you were painfully aware of his thighs clamping down on your hips.

"Fuck," he cursed, but apart from his narrowing eyes, his expression didn't waver. "Do I have to do everything myself?"

Before you had the chance to decipher his meaning, he cupped your face and brought his own close to it. Your whole body tensed as your lips met, a tension that was mirrored in his own. He was trembling against you, not daring to breathe, but his lips were soft and pliable and determined to coax a reaction from you.

In which they succeeded.

Your galloping heart pumped heat through you that made you sweat in your jeans, and you tried not to gasp when the tip of your tongue brushed against his for the merest sliver of a second. You needed more than this, yet savored everything he gave you at the same time, from the way he clung to you, to the way he shivered even as you were both dripping with heat, to the relieved puff of breath he expelled when it sunk in that you were kissing him back. 

He grew bolder after that, deepening the kiss and gripping your shoulder and the back of your neck, his fingers slowly inching their way across your skin. Your arms stayed mostly rigid to support yourself, but one of your hands found its way into his hair that was both soaking with sweat and stiff with product. You also noticed belatedly that you were grinding your hips against his, and it was literally the best feeling in the world when he hooked his legs over your thighs and returned the favor.

Buoyed by your desire, you lost yourself to the liquid fever of your kiss, the organic roll and unchecked twitching of your hips, the trail of fire his hands were raising in their quest to burrow beneath your tank top. As soon as he found the hem, he hitched it up to your shoulders, and you didn't want to stop kissing him, not yet, but it was a welcome opportunity to catch your breath without seeming overwhelmed by this.

As you lowered back down, he sank his teeth into your lips just as he greedily spread his fingers across your now naked back. This feeling, of his palm slipping across the expanse of your back, mapping as much skin as they could, was so much better than even the time Gansey rubbed ointment on your tattoo when you first got it – which had already affected you more than you were comfortable admitting.

You tensed for a moment when his hands dipped between your jeans and your boxer briefs to squeeze your clothed butt. Your divided attention was all he needed to flip you both over. Pinning your shoulders to the floor, he settled back onto your hips with such precision it knocked your head back. You were so hard you could barely stand it, and Kavinsky seemed to know it. His hands scorched a path from your torso to your pecs and up to your neck. Your muscles fluttered under his touch. His thumb stroked over your throat and you swallowed, before he applied some of his weight and restricted your breath, leaving just enough of a passage for air to pass through if you breathed calmly and evenly. But how could you when your pulse was tripping over itself and he was rocking back against you? 

Even in the rosy light of the setting sun, he was too gaunt to be beautiful but you were taken with the overwhelming want in his eyes.

Spots were dancing across your vision and your head was growing light when he released you. He wiped the sweat off his face with his shirt, then ripped it over his head. His gold chain glinted across his sharp collarbones and tickled your throat when he leaned down to kiss you again. This kiss was nothing like the ones before, hesitant and explorative as they had been. This was a kiss ripe with need and confidence. This was a kiss that told you here was a boy who knew what he wanted and how to get it, and you'd best buckle up because you were in for a ride.

In between one breath and the next, something tilted inside you, made it impossible for you to focus on how amazing he made you feel. Your heartbeat was kicking like a mule. 

He worried the skin of your neck between his teeth, bit your shoulder and your chest, swiped his tongue across your nipple. You watched as he drifted lower and he held your gaze, so serious in his desire you were unable to look away even as your skin prickled. You could drown in those eyes.   
His breath stuttered as he cupped you through your jeans, and he swallowed so hard you could hear his epiglottis tick.

_Ronan, what the fuck?_

Without breaking eye contact, he pulled down your zipper, tooth by fucking tooth. The sound was like nails on a chalkboard. Your skin tightened.

_What is wrong with you?_

It wasn't like he'd never seen your junk before, or you'd seen his; it was that this had overshot the realm of the innocent a long time ago and no amount of adrenaline could fool you over that fact. Your mind sped along that trajectory and filled your head with images of where this was leading. Try as you might, you couldn't deny that the prospect of his mouth around your dick, or even just his hand, was the hottest fucking thing to ever grace your mental panorama, and yet—

_We can't do this._

—you couldn't do this.

_It's wrong._

His fingers curled around your still-clothed erection, his other hand inching closer to your waistband. You stopped breathing.

_It's a sin, for Christ's sake!_

Shit. It was no good. In one burst of motion, you scrambled to sit upright and push him off. Your heart was jackhammering a hole in your chest, bleeding pain and shame and so much anger. You sucked in breath after breath like you'd just finished a decisive tennis match, but the absence of euphoria could only mean you lost.

"What the fuck, Lynch?" He punctuated his question with a fist to your shoulder once he'd snapped out of his daze.

You snatched it. "Don't touch me."

"Fuck, man. Seriously?" He stamped his foot against your chest to free himself from your crushing grip. When you finally let go, he tumbled backwards on his ass. He scowled at you, rubbing his wrist. "I thought you wanted this. I thought this was the whole damn reason you brought me here in the first place."

Your stomach dropped as if in free fall. " _That's_ what you thought?"

His eyes flickered away for a second before he trained them on you again. They were feral. "Don't fucking tell me you're not a goddamn faggot because I'm in your head. I know you. I know what you are."

You shot him a withering look. "Piss off."

_You can't tell anyone about this._

He bared his teeth at you, but thankfully didn't say anything. You'd been in enough fights for him to know he wouldn't get any more out of you. Snatching his tank top from the floor, he kicked your shin on the way out. You let him.

"Thanks for nothing, you bastard." He fished his phone from his pocket and the last thing you heard before he slammed the door was, "Pick up, asshole."

That was that. That was your great chance to reconnect with Kavinsky. Congratu-fucking-lations. That went well.

You stood and buttoned up, not bothering with your muscle T. You just left it where it had fallen. You couldn't get Kavinsky's words out of your head. Was that all he'd come for? An opportunity to fuck?

You felt so small right then, so stupid. Of course Kavinsky would twist an honest gesture into something prurient. He's not the kid you knew anymore.

Gnashing your teeth, you swept the decor off the nearest cabinet. Glass figurines and frames crashed to the floor. Plastic cracked and shards crunched beneath your soles as you picked up the trinkets your arm didn't reach before, and which you propelled at the wall then. Family photographs, a jar with sand and seashells, a bent alarm clock with strange symbols instead of numerals. As a finishing touch, you tossed over the cabinet. The plates inside scraped along the wood and clanked against each other.

Your anger exhausted itself, and you with it. You didn't feel any better. Self-loathing was a Sunday indulgence, a silent ritual performed on church pews in the presence of your brothers – one brother in particular, as if you needed his hatred to fuel your own. You didn't. You had plenty to go around yourself, especially after your father died. And now Kavinsky had added to it.

Despite going to church regular like clockwork, you had never confessed your many sins, because why bother, there was no absolution for the likes of you. You suspected there were no _likes of you._

Yet even if self-loathing was a private luxury unpacked at a certain time in a certain place, right that moment, standing on the jagged remains of memories and dreams, you were really fucking sick of yourself. You were sick of Kavinsky too, but if you talked to your counselor about it, she'd say you were projecting.

You could have had a chance with Kavinsky (whatever that meant), and you blew it.

You told yourself it wasn't what you wanted, that it was his easy fucking companionship you craved, nothing to do with tangled legs, teeth on skin, hands undoing zippers, but really, you had been building up to this for years, and pretending you'd been deaf and blind to it didn't mean you craved it any less.

Fuck this.

Fuck all of it.

You cut yourself while cleaning up and in the following days, every crook of your fingers, every washing of hands rekindled a whole host of snarled emotions, all of them unwelcome, especially the roaring desire you were trying to scrub from every inch of your system. 

He'd been a magnet to your attention before, but the longer you went without butting heads with him, the easier he was to ignore. Now, aching as you were to bridge that gap between you, to make it right, he was impossible to shut out, even when he wasn't there.

Your ears pricked up whenever thumping bass shuddered through a car's body, your head turned whenever a whiff of weed and smoke and gasoline wafted past you, your eyes flickered to every white glint on the streets.

If Gansey noticed your distraction, he was polite enough to say nothing. If he didn't, bless his oblivious soul.

You'd prefer for him not to notice. Hell, you'd prefer for yourself to forget it ever happened. It made you mad that it did happen in the first place. All you'd been trying to do was reconnect, to see if there was anything between you worth fighting for, but Kavinsky had to go and ruin it.

You should have known. Kavinsky is fire made flesh, and not the healing kind. Where he strikes, nothing grows. All he does is damage and he likes it like that.

If you knew that, why do you keep burning?

***

You opted for chopping wood to vent your anger instead of wrapping cars around the nearest lamp post or attacking them with a chainsaw. Those are satisfyingly destructive activities, but here at the Barns you could be certain no one would bother you. And you needed to be alone right now.

Yet no matter how much wood you chop, no matter how many bales of hay you carry, no matter how hard you scrub the Barns, you cannot rid yourself of the prickling of your scalp, the tingling in your skin, the restless ache in your bones. You can work yourself into a Zen-like state, but sooner or later the encounter with Kavinsky this morning catches up with you. Together, you've walked right up to the tipping point where history met possibility, but as if he'd suspected it, your brother had to interfere before the moment could run its course.

You worry your lips raw to scrub away the tickle of Kavinsky's breath. It's maddening to know just how easy you are, that it needs nothing more than Kavinsky's mouth brushing the shell of your ear for you to sink into the memory of that heated afternoon and let it consume you.

Your anger is black and simmering, directed at Kavinsky, at yourself, at your brother, but it's misfired pyrotechnics. Ineffectual. Fried. A puff of smoke.

Like a tossed-out firecracker, you're torched and torn and devoid of the explosive discharge that makes you you.

Gansey must have seen the turmoil gnawing through you when he came around after school to check up on you, but he wouldn't have known what caused it.

"Declan?" he surmised after one look at you, and it was both true and not.

Concern was etched on his face, clearly visible beneath the mask of _Gansey._ Try as he might to hide it, he preferred the time you lived at Monmouth Manufacturing, where he could keep a better eye on you. He would never admit it out loud, but he thinks it's dangerous for you to be living alone, at least for now.

You're still a hazard to yourself, whether you have a piece of your old life back or not. Living at the Barns won't change that. Night horrors, too, are a threat. So is your recklessness.

He handed you copies of the notes he made in class, a flimsy pretext to show up unannounced. Or maybe he did announce himself. Not like you would have checked your phone even if you knew where it is.

On the top, Gansey's blocky handwriting outlines a treatise on Cicero's rhetorical devices in the text you would have translated today, no doubt meant to catch your interest because it's Latin, but you'd rather do without Cicero and his vanity, so better luck next time, Gansey. His efforts are wasted on you.

All they do is remind you of the days you spent inside Cabeswater, conversing with it, manipulating it with your thoughts, testing your will against Kavinsky's, to see who was better at imagining changes to your surroundings.

 _Utinam ipse tecum esse possem._ Fucking Cicero.

Is that why you're here now, at the edge of the fairground, gravitating toward the music and the loudness and the promise of glimpsing his silhouette somewhere in the masses? Because you want to be with him?

It all comes back to your brother's words.

_Stay away from him._

Maybe you would have, if he'd kept his opinions to himself. But now your presence at the party, same as the tattoo on your back, is a huge middle finger to your brother.

You park in the shadows just outside the field and for a while, you stay inside your car and drink by yourself, unseen and unbothered. You're not ready to face Kavinsky yet; you lack the words to convince him to leave Cabeswater alone, because it's something you actively avoid thinking about. If you started to lay out the words in a neat and logical order, the way Gansey would do when approaching a problem he intends to solve, they wouldn't stop rattling in your skull until they've knocked loose all the other things you want Kavinsky to know but can't talk about.

It becomes too much. Too much to think about, too much to say.

And anyway, Kavinsky doesn't respond to logic. So why bother?

With your thumb, you rub the faint scar on your palm that runs along your head line. You can't see it in the dark, but you don't need to. You've spent years examining it.

* * *

The knife point gleamed at you. Blood stained the blade, hungry for more. Another sacrifice.

"I'll do it, if you won't," he said, grinning and eager and already making a grab for your hand. His fingers ran red.

You evaded him and took hold of the knife. "I can do it myself."

And you could, you would, you were gripping the handle and you were about ready. You were not _hesitating,_ you were just making sure he was paying attention. 

He was. 

You exhaled, and then there was a sting and a cut and blood welling up from it. You watched, fascinated, heart in your hand, hurt all but forgotten, although it was a steady knock below the wound. It was not like when you skinned your knee and suddenly there was blood among the dirt on your skin. This was clean, almost nonexistent. First the line was white, then pink, then it turned red and frizzy as blood began collecting in your palm.

Bright-eyed, he held his hand out to you, equally red and dripping, and signaled you to clasp it.

"Blood brothers," he said when you did and the blood from your cuts mixed. He tried to be solemn about it, intone it like you'd heard the men in the movies do it, when your father was home and you lay curled up against his side on the sofa. He tried, but he failed in his excitement.

You nodded anyway, as excited as he was. "Blood brothers."

 

This was not the start of your friendship, or even the foundation of it, but perhaps it was its consolidation. Now, you'd never have to part again, now you'd always find your way back to the other, bound by blood and loyalty.

That's what you thought at the time, anyway.

 

That night, your brother was his usual spoilsport self and called you stupid for doing that, for cutting yourselves and continuing to play outside and letting dirt get in the wounds, as if being a year older meant he was gifted with all the wisdom in the universe. He complained that he couldn't leave you unsupervised for even a second. As if it was your fault that your cut was beginning to get infected or that _his_ needed stitches.

You suspected he was being mean about it because he was jealous. Because he didn't have a friend, a blood brother, like you do now. No one wants to be friends with him. It's no wonder why.

Your brother grumbled about it, but he cleaned your wounds like your father had shown you and stitched up your friend's palm because it was too late to let your mother drive him to a doctor. Your friend watched your brother's movements like a hawk, suspicious, bewildered, and maybe a little fascinated by his skill. His care.

He said the extent of care he got from his nurse was throwing some burning shit on his wounds and putting a band-aid on top. His words were barely more than a whisper, and you assumed that was because he didn't want your mother to hear him say 'shit.'

You also watched your brother's movements like a hawk, because you didn't like him touching your friend. You didn't like your friend's attention on him. Your brother is not special just because he's a year older, he doesn't have what you have, and yet your friend looked up to him.

In hindsight, it's obvious that you had been the jealous one.

In hindsight, you worried that he liked your brother, maybe more than he liked you.

In the days following your ritual, he'd keep picking at his palm, at the cut symbolizing your frienship, held together by your brother's stitches.

* * *

It is pandemonium on the fairgrounds, as always. Fire and chaos and the screams of the damned.

One sound in particular catches your interest, as it always does. You were determined to stay inside your car and just observe for a while, get a grip on the thinning fuse in your head, but it lures you out. There is something seductive about the metallic crunch of cars crashing into each other, about the shattering of glass and the squeal of tires, pulverizing gravel underneath them. You are that sound. It scrapes along your bones, sets your teeth on edge, fills you with a want that's sharp and stinging, a hair-thin cut along your skin, opening you like a ripped seam. 

You watch.

Around you, drunken revelers cheer and dance. Some are applying baseball bats to a dented car. Your beer is empty before you know it and refills are offered, but you know better than to accept anything that's passed around here. 

You watch and you scan the crowd for Kavinsky while at the same time you tell yourself that's not what you're doing. Denial is a reflex practiced for years. It has served you well so far.

He hasn't seen you yet. No one has told him you're here. Or if they did, he's decided to let you stew a little longer. You can still leave. Still safe some part of yourself – dignity or self-respect or whatever. You still have that, but you're not sure for how much longer if you stay.

You spot him on top of one of the despoiled cars. The spotlights lining the fairgrounds cast Kavinsky in a ghostly halo, skin so white it's almost translucent and bleeding over the edges. If it were anyone but him, you'd say he looks like a mockery of an angel, all stark highlights and otherwordly luster.

Wraithlike might be better description, portending his own death.

He's firing up the crowd, wagging his fingers in a "Bring it" motion, then jumping from the roof. A molotov cocktail hits the space his feet occupied just a moment before. You can't hear it, but laughter is spelled out in the backwards bend of his spine. He brushes off his shoulders, scrubs his fingers over his hair, as if splinters had fallen on him.

Two more bombs explode. Flames dance atop the car, lick their way up from its interior, reach out high and hungry. Kavinsky lights a cigarette on the bonfire it's becoming.

You get close enough to see the cigarette is scorched. It burns faster than it should. Like he does. Already the ashes are flying. The melting plastic is noxious to your nose, but Kavinsky has probably destroyed his sense of smell a long time ago.

Kavinsky picks you out from among the onlookers and grins, shades reflecting the inferno.

"Knew you'd come," he says as he steps up to you and slaps a hand on your shoulder. Your lips tighten. Suddenly your pulse is a detectable thing, drumming against those fingers squeezing your skin.

You grab his wrist, partly to pry his hand from your shoulder and partly to make sure he's not an apparition. That he's still real, still flesh and blood, still with a defined outline.

His gang is loitering close by, pretending to give a shit about anything but what's going on between the two of you. Their heads may be turned away, but their eyes linger. They don't trust you around him.

Or maybe they don't trust Kavinsky around you.

"So, Lynch. Got me anything good?" Kavinsky asks.

"You don't deserve good."

Kavinsky's laughter is throaty and offensive. His palm covers your sternum, fingers splayed over the dip of your collarbone, pressing as if getting ready to shove. 

He doesn't, of course. He wants to stay in your personal space until it makes you uncomfortable enough to step back yourself. That's how he knows he's gotten under your skin.

"And yet you came. That's good enough for me."

His thumb taps your chest pensively. He must have detected the spike in your pulse, but he doesn't want to play with that particular fire yet.

"What's this?" he asks instead, snatching your beer bottle from your loose grip. He shakes it, then lifts it to his lips. His Adam's apple bobs although there's not a drop left. It's only for a moment that he's exposing his throat to you, but the desire to mark it flares up within you. You tamp it down.

He throws the bottle over his shoulder, not caring where it lands or if it hits anyone. It glances off someone's back and shatters on the ground. Kavinsky is already looking for a refill.

He finds it in someone else's hand and casually plucks it from them as they pass. The person is bewildered for a second, no doubt wondering where their whiskey bottle went, and they turn around, ready for a fight. But when they notice it's Kavinsky saluting with their drink before taking a swig, they rein in their anger. Instead of lobbing a first, they lob mumbled curses before hurrying on.

Kavinsky's grin is wide and wicked. He thrives on encounters like this.

"Since you brought me nothing fun to set on fire," Kavinsky says as he drapes his arm over your shoulder and pushes the bottle against your chest, "I take it you want to pick up where we left off this morning?"

"I told you what I wanted to talk about when you brushed me off "

Kavinsky shrugs. "Just sayin', Lynch. It's awfully conspicuous of you to show up here without a gift. Almost makes me think you want me to set _you_ on fire."

"What?" Something inside you flames to life as if he'd already done just that.

" _Quod dixi, dixi._ " He takes another pull from the bottle when you wouldn't take it. "I said what I said."

"I know what it means, asshole. You don't have to translate."

"Seems to me you need everything spelled out for you, though, otherwise it won't enter that thick skull of yours." He taps your temple with his index finger.

From the corner of your eye, you notice the arc of a beer bottle before it explodes by your feet. "Get a room, you two," someone from the crowd jeers and there's laughter and commotion.

Kavinsky arches an eyebrow, first at them, then at you, and you don't know it's meaning. But you can guess.

"Keep dreaming." You shove him off.

"Funny you should say that. Just what I was gonna do."

"Not what I meant."

"Has anyone ever told you you're shit at communicating? Because you are." He snickers and lobs the bottle at you before lighting another cigarette.

You catch and you glower and you bring the bottle to your lips. It would buy you some time to think about your next plan of action. You need to get him away from the noise and the crowds and the constant distractions they pose. You need to be alone with him so you can talk about Cabeswater. 

Yet he's sure to misunderstand.

Just like everything else misunderstands.

"Now you're getting the idea," he says approvingly, watching you drink.

Let him, you think. Let them. They're not your problem.

You grab him by his pathetically skinny arm and drag him toward the edges of the fairgrounds, where the cars are parked and where there's still enough light to see by and be seen.

"Aww, I knew you wanted some alone time with me. Dick not putting out enough?"

You throw him against the nearest car.

"Eager, I like that." Kavinsky grins around the cigarette in his mouth.

You snatch it from him and drop it to the ground. Before your anger can take you any further, you stop yourself right there – you don't want this night to escalate before you've had your chance to make your case. Still, he's making it so damn difficult.

"I'm tired of your games," you say as you let go of the straps of his tanktop and take another pull from the whiskey bottle you're still carrying around. It's something to hold onto in a way Kavinsky isn't. 

And yet that's why you're here, because you're still holding onto Kavinsky – or an idea of him you may have once had and that he may have never been. It's _your_ idea of him, true, and it may be closer to the real him than anyone has ever cared to burrow to, but it's not compatible with the version he presents you with. You can't engage with him if you're trying to engage with the shadow of a ghost.

Like a ghost, he's fleeting, elusive, always drifting to the next best thing to entertain him. You can't command his interest for long if you don't throw him a bone now and then.

So you drag him further, toward your car. He lets himself be dragged. It fuels that foolish thing called hope that burns inside you. Despite all his pretenses, he _wants_ to be with you. He's been waiting for you to come around and realize it.

His breath is shallow when you reach for your keys. He takes the bottle from your hands, gulping down a mouthful of the same liquid that's still warming the space behind your heart. Or maybe it's his proximity that does it. You can't be sure. You can't be sure of anything when you're around him. He just sort of tilts reality with the mere flicker of a grin, and you can't handle it. You wrest the bottle back from his yielding hands and swallow.

The liquid burns your throat, your thoughts, your prayers, and spreads out through your chest like a tree taking root.

There's fire in your veins, and you don't know what started it. 

You only know what's going to end it. It's like you've always known, but didn't want to acknowledge it. One whiff of gasoline and you're burning yourself to the ground like the sinner you are.

You're tempted. You're so tempted, but after all this time denying yourself, how can you give in?

Kavinsky makes it hard to ignore him. Hard to _resist_ him. His fingers are playing with the door handle to the backseats, ready to yank it open any second.

It's the last thing you see before your key rasps into the lock with the sound a chainsaw makes, and turns.

Liquid sprays your jeans as the bottle crashes to the ground – as your lips crash against his.

He's both tense and laughing as you kiss him, clumsily, letting your desire guide you, even though you feel out of your depth with Kavinsky. He's been fooling around while you haven't, and your difference in experience is never more pronounced than in the realm of the physical, the intimate, where one body meets another and touch becomes the language you speak.

There is one silver lining: the physical is your realm, too. It's where you're most comfortable or else you wouldn't turn your dreams into tangibe objects. You may be used to talking with your fist instead of your fingertips, but you can learn.

He kisses back, fervently, not even pausing to goad you with a "fucking finally" or whatever this time. This has been long in coming and you both know it, there's no need to waste your breath on the obvious. Not like you had any to begin with.

Your head swims when you break the kiss to fill your lungs. Fingers clutching the back of his neck, you press your forehead against his and breathe in the air he breathes out. It tickles your lips and you want to lean in again, taste his chapped lips and ignore that swelling ache in your chest, because this is not really what you want, is it? It's a perversion of your desire, a need so monstrous it scares even you. And you've seen the horrors that reside in your dreams.

You don't want _this,_ you want something purer, something more reminiscent of the old days, but Kavinsky has polluted pure a long time ago.

You knew this when you came here, when you kissed him, when you _wanted_ to kiss him, so maybe it _is_ what you desire, after all, you just can't admit it to yourself, because admitting it would mean calling into question too many of the things you had taken for absolutes until now.

You and him are incompatible, yet so much alike. He can't give you what you want, but he offers what you need, teases you with it, holding it just out of reach so you really have to struggle to attain it. If that is truly what you desire. You don't know. You don't know, and that's what amuses Kavinsky, it's what has amused him for months, once he's gotten over that unfortunate incident at the Barns when you had given in to some pull between you two you hadn't even been aware of existed until then.

You bristle against it, that knowledge, that _need,_ that seemingly insurmountable gap between you.

It could be bridged so easily... All you have to do is lean in.

It's wrong.

It's a bargain for which you have to be willing to pay the price.

This moment is all you get. There will be no repeats.

You know this.

And yet you crave to run your thumb across his lips (like he's doing), capture his mouth in a kiss (like he's doing), dip into him for an honest reaction (like he's doing). It works. Of course it does. You hate how easy he makes it seem.

Your hands grab at his hips, fingers sliding through the belt loops of his jeans, and you crush him against your car as if you hoped the closer you could get to him physically, the closer he'd feel to you mentally as well.

Or perhaps you weren't thinking at all. Perhaps this is all just your body, reacting to the situation, the hormones coursing through your veins, to Kavinsky. And how he makes you feel.

Quickly, like the shot from a gun, he yanks open the car door, as if throwing open the gateway to another world, a world where you can finally be okay together. If that's a thing that can still happen. It certainly feels like stepping into an alternate universe when you let him push you down, fingers searing against your chest.

You sit on the edge of the backseat, on the precipice of a decision, a crossroads. You can either be a sinner and pay the price, or you can say goodbye to this chance forever.

Kavinsky is staring down at you, connected to you through his fingertips on your chest.

You thread your fingers through his and turn his palm up to your face. The light is too low to see the scar traversing the length of it, but you know it's there.

You scoot back on the seats and tug him after you. It's a tug of war of sorts, because he wants you flat on your back while you want to sit side by side. In the end, it doesn't matter, because all that matters is how good he feels against you, how good _kissing_ him feels, and how touching his skin sates your raging need for him.

Just sliding your hands up his bare arms and resting them on his bony shoulders is enough for you. It's not enough for him. He rips your muscle T over your head and dumps it somewhere heedlessly. At least this is happening in your own car. No damning evidence will be left in Kavinsky's. Not that Kavinsky's smug bastard face won't be bragging about what is happening here for weeks to come. Even if nothing were to happen. The fact that you showed up at all and were seen with him at all will keep the rumor mill going, whether Kavinsky is actively feeding it or not.

Not that you care what anyone thinks.

But you'd give the world to know what Kavinsky is thinking right now.

His eyes are veiled and unreadable to you, even as they're burning into your skin. You stare back, and it's equally as heated. You pull him in for another kiss because that's easier to handle than his weighty gaze sizing you up.

Or perhaps it's not. Kavinsky's hands are hot on your chest, stroking his thumb over your pecs, and his tongue is even hotter, teasing your own. Sweat is pooling everywhere, trying to cool you off, but Kavinsky is an inferno that's going to leave you scorched to your bones.

This time you're ready, this time you know what to expect.

This time, you don't flinch when his hands snake between you to busy themselves with your button and your zipper.

You groan into his mouth as his knuckles brush your length, and he grins against you, lets his head fall onto your shoulder. He laughs, but it has a bitter tinge to it.

"If you're gonna push me off again, now's your chance."

Heat stabs through your gut, and shame. But you ignore it this time. You're not going to let him go again, thinking that you hate him for what he is, or what he tried to do.

Your fingers curl around his wrist as he peels your boxer shorts away from your erection, not to stop him, but rather to ground yourself. His own fingers feel so good around you and you can't help but thrust into them.

Kavinsky's zipper comes down with a seductive hiss and your head crashes against the backrest when his dick nudges yours, still covered in a thin layer of fabric, but so much softer than the outline in his jeans would have had you believe.

You blink at the roof of your car, as if to regain some focus, but there is none to be had, not anymore. You're swept up in the feel of his hot mouth on your neck, his fingers on your dick, his hips grinding against yours.

"Fuck," Kavinsky hisses into the silence between you. "I want to blow you so bad."

Your breath hitches. The mere thought of Kavinsky on his knees for you chases a shiver through your skin and some of the wildness you feel must be reflected in your gaze.

"Don't worry about it," he sniggers and pats your cheek. "I'm going to be fucking gentle with you, since this is so obviously your first time."

"Fuck off," you say and jostle his shoulders.

"You don't really mean that, do you?" he asks and his hand twists around you, strangling a cry in your throat. His grin cuts through the darkness. "That's what I thought."

You catch his elbow just as he's about to slide to the floor between the seats, and haul him back up. He frowns and you can feel the sneer tugging at the corners of his mouth from the way he sucks his breath through it. Shaking your head, you kiss him before it can fully form.

It seems to have the desired effect of disarming him: the sneer bleeds from him and his frown morphs into something different, something more desperate as he settles onto your lap and kisses you back.

"Guess this works, too," he says benevolently.

You moan into his mouth when he begins stroking you, when he rubs his own dick against yours and squeezes the heads together. It feels so good.

Ever since your last encounter in the Barns you've pleasured yourself to the memory of Kavinsky cupping your dick through your boxers, no matter how much you've been trying to shut out the image and the feel of it. You didn't want to imagine it was his hand touching you in all the right ways, yet the thought was insistent and settled somewhere in the back of your mind where you didn't have to examine it too closely.

This is so much better, even though he doesn't know all the right ways to touch you, but it's good, it's telling you this is real, and it's keeping you from coming too quickly. Not that you can stave it off much longer. You skid along the sharp edge of your release and clutch the back of Kavinsky's neck harder, holding onto him as if he had any chance of keeping you steady.

As if he had any wish to. But all of this is designed to destabilize you, to tear away the ground from under your feet and bring you down to his level, shuddering and in pieces.

It's the desperation in his voice that does it.

He curses your name into your ear, but it sounds more like a plea, as though you're giving him something even he can cherish – as if you'd destroy him if you took it away again.

With a stuttering moan, you come over his hand, spilling out over your torso and chest.

"Fuck, that's gross." Kavinsky laughs as he drags his thumb through your come and spreads it over your unmarked skin. You're still catching your breath or else you might have thrown him off of you. But then he shifts his hips forward and rubs his dick against the mess on your abs. "But I've always wanted to do that."

You can't deny that the wet slide of skin feels nice, but what's even nicer is the tremble in Kavinsky's body, the tiny jerks and spasms that grip him, as well as the stubborn clench of his jaw that is determined not to let any sound escape as he comes hot and thick all over you.

He's beautiful like that, open and honest in a way you haven't seen him in years, if only for a moment, but this moment is all you need.

You play with the sweaty strands at back of his neck and draw circles into the skin of his hips as you both calm down and gather your bearings. He's curled against you, head resting in the crook of your shoulder and taking shaky breaths.

You don't move away from each other for what feels like hours, but the sky is as dark as before.

"Can we talk now?" you ask eventually, and the suddenness of it shocks even you. You don't know why you said it. Perhaps you thought Kavinsky was already asleep because he wasn't trying to aggravate you and wouldn't hear you. Perhaps you can't handle to not be fighting with him. You don't know. Your head is woozy.

Kavinsky huffs. "I feel so used now."

Your silence is meaningful.

"I need a line first, man."

Tired as they are, his arms move toward his pockets but you stop them, gently curling your fingers around his wrists and pulling them away. You don't want this moment to end, not yet, even if you were the one who destroyed it first. But the mood would vanish if he got high now, and you can't let that happen.

It surprises you that he lets it happen with nothing more than an annoyed sound of protest. It should be telling that he doesn't have a ready quip for you, but perhaps he doesn't want to gut you with his words right now.

"Fine, let's talk," he groans and slides his lips against your own.

Perhaps it was wrong of you to bring up this topic so soon, perhaps you should have waited, perhaps you should have enjoyed a few more minutes of not fighting with Kavinsky. As if you could have settled into that without a guilty conscience.

You want him, yes, you wanted this, but you don't think you deserve it.

Kavinsky doesn't seem to have these hang-ups.

In between one kiss and the next, he places something small and rounded on your tongue. It tastes like dry cardboard paper, and you don't need to see it to know that it's toxic green.

For a second, this confuses you, but you think that it must be easier for him to talk in the dream.

You swallow the pill he gave you, eager to get away from the shame that wedges itself out of your heart, and watch him swallow his own. You can't tell which one of you succumbs to it first, but Kavinsky is already waiting for you on the other side of the dream. He always seems to be the first one in, and the first one out. You never had to wait for him. He was always around.

You never really thought about how it must have been for him, if you arrived as quickly as he did, or if he had to wait for what seemed like hours before you appeared. Dream time can be a lot stranger than waking hours.

"Still no control," Kavinsky breathes out, unamused. He's crouching over your unresponsive body and poking it with a stick, as if nothing had just happened between you. As if what had happened had been a dream, and this was reality now. "You're so pathetic. I don't even know why I bother with you."

"Who else?" you rasp, and flinch when the branch hits you hard. _Who else is there. Like you. Like me?_

"That's the million dollar question."

You don't believe you're the only ones, and yet you want it to be so. It's what makes you special. It's why you understand each other. If there were more dreamers out there, would you even have had a reason to stay close? To be friends?

Would you have noticed each other at all?

You're on a roof overlooking the Barns, both zipped up and wearing clothes again, but you don't know whether that is his work or yours. You're equally good at manipulating the world inside Cabeswater, bending the laws of what you _thought_ possible until they reflected the strange possibilities alive in your mind.

"We always end up here, don't we?" Kavinsky scoffs, as if he doesn't like what he sees. But he has to feel the same sort of nostalgia that you do. He may not have grown up here, but he's done the next best thing. He stayed with you so much during your childhood days that thoughts of the Barns are inextricably linked to thoughts of Kavinsky, and vice versa. Strip one of the other and it won't be the same anymore: the Barns feel empty without him to keep you company; Kavinsky feels like a ghost of his former self outside the Barns.

It's as simple as that, but it's as if it's hitting you for the first time. As if the pieces are only now coming together.

"It's where we both grew up," you say. You're sitting closer than you would have comfortable with before, shoulders almost touching.

"Apart, you mean."

The words jolt through you, but you don't let it show. This is your dream as well as his, and you can manipulate it to your liking. And you'd like for him to not see the effect his words are having on you.

"Whose fault is that?"

You can't help but challenge him, even here, in the space you are making for one another. Even now, when you're finally together again, without outside eyes prying into your affairs, without his cronies judging you for taking him away, for making him lose focus of the mission they thought he'd promised them. Or making him weak, just as he makes you weak.

Kavinsky scoffs again.

"I'm not the one who ran off with Dick the first chance I got."

"'Ran off with Dick'?" Now it's your turn to make a derisive noise. You feel a lot less intoxicated in the dream, a lot less drunk on him. It's what makes it easier to argue. "You were chasing after skirts long before I ever met Gansey."

He shakes his head, blond strands falling over his eyes. He could have dreamed them impeccable, and yet they reflect the sweat-soaked mess of your waking life. You wonder if it's a conscious decision or just a lack of attention.

Beneath you, cows are lowing in their stables.

"It was Dick who suddenly entered our life and took up all your attention," Kavinsky says in a rarer than rare bout of earnestness. So rare in fact, you may have believed it nonexistent.

"You're full of shit."

"Maybe _you_ are and you just don't realize it."

"You wouldn't have let that happen unless you had something else to occupy you at the time."

It hits you as soon as you've verbalized it: Kavinsky hadn't been chasing after skirts, although he's certainly done that too – instead, he'd been after Declan. Kavinsky had been making eyes at your brother since he stitched up his palm and told him to be more careful next time. _You_ could have told him as much and he wouldn't have cared a whit. And yet, when your brother says it, it stays with Kavinsky like the word of gospel.

Declan could certainly spin words in his favor – the rhetoric club has taught him well – but it was a far cry from gospel. Kavinsky should have continued going to church with you. Maybe then he'd know the true meaning of the word.

"I'm telling you it was the emergence of one Richard Gansey the Third that interfered with our friendship."

"Sure it wasn't my brother?" you ask pointedly. You're beginning to feel anger simmer in your veins and you swallow it down before it can come to a boil.

Kavinsky's head tilts towards you then, and his grin is wide and knowing. "I like it when you're jealous."

You press your lips together before you can say anything to implicate you. Kavinsky draws out your truths. Especially here, where truth and fiction intermingle and it's difficult to tell them apart. Anything can happen here.

A meteor shower streaks through the night sky to prove your point.

"No sense in denying it here. I can feel your traitorous heartbeat as if it were my own," Kavinsky says and scratches his nails over his breastbone as if the awareness of his beating heart made him uncomfortable. "It's just that I could never figure out who you were jealous of."

The moon hangs low in the silence that surrounds you, illuminating the sharp angles of his face. Angles you can cut yourself on. He drops his gaze to his hands, where his thumb is rubbing along his palm.

"Me or your brother."

It's only now that you notice how naked he looks without his sunglasses, because you hyperfocus on anything other than what he just said. 

"I guess it makes sense somehow," Kavinsky continues, not giving you the chance to come up with a topic of your own, because this is not one you want to continue having. "You couldn't handle liking either of us, so you focused on Gansey instead."

The worst of this conversation is that he's calling Gansey by the name he wants to be called, which means he's no longer trying to goad you. You somehow wish he still were. It would be easier to deal with.

"I know what's going on in your head right now. You're trying to ignore all of it, but I've seen you with your brother."

You stop breathing, suddenly unable to move a muscle.

_Ronan, what the fuck?_

"I've seen you kiss him."

_What is wrong with you?_

"Made me wonder. About a lot of things. But mostly, whether you liked me at all, or whether you saw me as competition."

_We can't do this._

"Or as proxy, perhaps? I don't know. It was just weird."

_It's wrong._

"Stop talking," you say, although it's more of a rasp, barely there at all. You don't want to hear this. You don't want to hear anything anymore. And yet your brother is still hissing hurtful things into your ears.

_It's a sin, for Christ's sake._

You didn't kiss him because you wanted to do it for kissing's sake. You kissed him because Kavinsky had kissed him and you wanted to know what was so special about your brother. Why would Kavinsky choose to make out with him when you had been right there?

It never meant anything to you, kissing your brother. It couldn't. Not when every meaning was wrapped up in Kavinsky – he had taken meaning away from you when he left. You had been trying to find it again when you met Gansey, who helped you rediscover not only meaning, but wonder, awe, an appreciation for a life you either hadn't known before or else had forgotten about.

You startle when a warm hand wraps around yours.

"Just saying, I know better now."

Your jaw sets.

You can't tell him what he means to you, partly because you're no longer sure if it even holds true, since you've been living in the past for too long, but you feel like you have to tell him something. It's odd that he strikes you as so vulnerable here, when he's brash and bragging and brilliant in your waking lives. 

"Let's start over," you say and like before, it catches even you by surprise.

"Like, what? You wanna go another round?" Kavinsky teases and leans closer. "Because I wasn't kidding when I said I wanted to blow you."

"You know what I meant," you hiss, trying to fight down the blush that's creeping up your cheeks.

"I told you." Kavinsky pushes your shoulders down and crawls on top of you. "I never know what you mean, because you're shit at communicating."

You let him pin your threaded fingers to the roof and you let him kiss you before he fades.

You wake to find him still slumped against you, forehead against your neck and fingers on your sides, breathing evenly, but not deeply enough for sleep. It's strangely peaceful like this, and something settles inside you even though nothing has been settled between you yet.

But you're confident you can get through to him now.

He might even listen.

You place your palm against his, scar on scar. It's more than you had this morning. You can both work from there.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Memory" by Sugarcult.


End file.
